5th Australian Quilting Cruise

The 5th Australian Quilting Cruise leaving Sydney 31st January 2018 around New Zealand is now full.  The response to this cruise has been overwhelming and on behalf of Chris Dowell and Juanita Bugge and myself I would like to thank all those wonderful ladies who have booked.

We have a waiting list if you are interested in going on this cruise. Please contact me by email russeldr@bigpond.com if you are interested.

 

 

 

 

Five Day February Retreat Workshops

Workshop No 1 22nd – 23rdh February choice of

Chris Dowell

Country Colours ‘Buddies Strip Quilt’ with optional appliqué Kits include Outback, Australia Bush, The Sea

Dorothy Clee

 ‘The Brumby’
This workshop is designed to teach simple techniques to create a stunning art quilt.
Suitable for the beginner to the advanced quilter. A kit is available.

Juanita Buggé

Judy Niemeyer Workshop. This workshop gives the option of a two day—Bali Fever, Fractured paint Box, Stepping or Five day workshop.– Paradise in Blue, Glacier Star, Mariners Compass

24th February 2016 
Choice of Baily Island Hobo Bag and a 22” Ruler Bag.  Kits available.

Workshop No 2 25th – 26th February choice of

Chris Dowel

‘Dogwood Rose’ This workshop features raw edge appliqué combined with piecing to create a shaped wall hanging. Suitable for the beginner – advanced.

Dorothy Clee
Coordination and Contrast
This workshop is designed incorporate panel prints or large scale prints. Suitable for the beginner to the advanced quilter.

Juanita is again offering the 2 day Judy Niemeyer Workshop and continuing the 5 day workshop. This workshop gives the option of —Bali Fever, Fractured Paint Box, Stepping Stones Kits available.

Mystery Workshop 23^rd February
Kits are provided for this workshop

 

Date	Port	Arrive	Depart
14 Feb	Sydney	--	6:30 PM
15 Feb	Cruising	--	--
16 Feb	Cruising	--	--
17 Feb	Isle of Pines, New Caledonia	8:00 AM	5:00 PM
18 Feb	Noumea, New Caledonia	8:00 AM	5:00 PM
19 Feb	Lifou, Loyalty Island	8:00 AM	8:00 PM
20 Feb	Mystery Island, Vanuatu	8:00 PM	5:00 PM
21 Feb	Cruising	--	--
22 Feb	Cruising	--	--
23 Feb	Cruising	--	--
24 Feb	Sydney	6:00 AM	–

 

UFO Quilting Retreat

Last weekend Russellee BnB Craft Retreats hosted a UFO Quilting Retreat.  Nine lovely ladies travelled to Tumut from Sydney, Braidwood, Queanbeyan and Canberra for this retreat.

Most of these ladies had not met before the retreat and new friendships were made over the weekend.  Quilt tops were completed and lots of ideas were shared.

Tony again did a wonderful job of providing food for the ladies.  It never ceases to amaze me the beautiful meals that he presents to the ladies.
A couple of the ladies had to leave on the Sunday afternoon but the rest stayed an extra night to enjoy a wonderful Quilting Party presented by Maru Soto of Material Girls Down Under.  Maru had a great range of gadgets, fabrics, and books for the ladies to purchase.  Maru  also made the morning special with games with quilting themes and demonstrations of gadgets and quilt blocks.

Local ladies from Batlow and Tumut also came to the 'Quilting Party'.  A highlight of the morning was a show and tell.
Geraldine Fleming from Batlow showed her wonderful NZ themed quilt.  Geraldine made the centre panels of the quilt in Amanda Daleys workshop on our 2ns Australian Quilting Cruise.  Well done Geraldine.

News from Russellee

The past five weeks have been full on for Russellee BnB Craft Retreats.  Our first quilting retreat for the year was our 4^th Australian Quilting and Embroidery Cruise.  This left Sydney on the 22^nd February for 11 nights around the north island of New Zealand.  Teachers were Helen Godden, Jan Pilgrim, Chris Dowell and myself.  We had 34 wonderful ladies attend.  Several of these ladies were making their second and even third cruise with us.

The week after returning home I had 11 scrapbookers for my first Scrappin’ Retreat for the year.  We had a new comer this time in that we had a male scapper come.  His work was superb.

I was invited to the South Coast Quilters 25^th Anniversary Luncheon last Monday as the quest speaker.  I was very impressed with the standard of this event and can not praise the organisers highly enough for there presentation on the day.   

Last weekend saw the return on Sandy’s Quilters from Canberra.  This group started coming about 7 years ago and are now doing two retreats at Russellee a year.  Thank you Sandy for your group’s wonderful patronage.

Planning is well on the way for our Bali/Lombok Quilting Retreat Fabric and Cultural Tour.  This is filling fast.  We take a maximum of 10 on this trip and do the trip once a year.  I have posted our itinerary.  This trip is great value at $1749 per person land content.  This includes twin share accommodation, all breakfasts, all lunches, for dinners and entry into places on the itinerary as well as the use of a sewing machine.

Our 5^th Australian Quilting Cruise is well into planning also.  The cruise will leave Sydney on the 14^th February 2016. I hope to have all the class information up very soon.

Don’t forget Russellee can organise private craft retreats for up to 10 ladies most times of the year.  Just contact me for details at russeldr@bigpond.com

Dorothy

Alaskan Quilting Cruise 2015 Update

All is set for our 4th Australian Quilting Cruise leaving on the 22nd February.  We are now gearing up for our Alaskan Quilting Cruise on the 4th September.  The ship is Royal Caribbean 'Radiance of the Seas'. We are taking a maximum of 24 quilters on this cruise.  Not only are we taking Australian ladies we would like to invite our sisters in patchwork from Canada and the US.

Two Aussie teachers will be presenting the workshops on the 7 night cruise through Inside Passage from Vancouver and return.  There will be three works shops and we are providing sewing machines.
Chris Dowell had designed two appliques, one with an Australian theme and one with a Alaskan theme.  These can be made into a wall hanging or a cushion cover.  Alternatively the applique can be combined with Dorothy's workshop.  A quilt top.

Dorothy has three themes for her workshop. The Australian Outback, the Australian Bush and the Alaskan Wilderness.
Our final workshop will be our Mystery Workshop.  This has always been a hit on our cruises.

Combined Workshops

The cruise plus taxes, gratuities, workshops, and use of a sewing machine starts from around $1700 US.  An optional kit fee of $100 or bring your own fabrics.  For information contact Lorelle Hardt lorelle@craftingcruises.com, check out the information http://www.craftingcruises.com/cruisepdf/AlaskaQuiltingCruise2015.pdf
or contact Dorothy russeldr@bigpond.com

In conjunction with this cruise I have asked Debbie Rodd from Rocky Mountain Quilting Tours to put together a pre and post cruise two week quilting tour of the Rocky Mountains of Canada.  This will include visits to quilt shops, a quilting lesson, visit to a quilt group and of course sight seeing the spectacular Rocky Mountains.

The pre cruise tour is full however there are vacancies in the post cruise tour.  The cost is $3995 Australian dollars.  Contact me for details russeldr@bigpond.com.

Airfares and pre/post accommodation is up to the individual.  Lorelle is also putting together some shorter Rocky Mountain tours.
Happy quilting
Dorothy

Bits and Bobs

It has been awhile since I have posted.  Been putting reports on Facebook. Anyway the past few months have been very busy.

Tony and I took nine lovely ladies to Bail for our annual Bail Quilting Retreat, Fabric and Cultural tour.  This was a great success with lots of fabric buying, sightseeing and of course sewing.  This is a link to my Bail Quilting Retreat 2014 album https://www.facebook.com/dorothy.clee.9/media_set?set=a.887340287950740.1073741831.100000243312215&type=3

Since I come home from Bail I have been concentrating on our 4^th Australian Quilting and Embroidery Cruise.  We have 34 ladies coming plus partners and friends.  This cruise is going to New Zealand on the 22^nd February 2015.  There is still time to join us on this cruise.

I have managed to fit in a weekend in Melbourne attending an Alison Holt workshop.  This is my finished project.

I shall try not to be so long between posts next time.

Take care

Dorothy

Albury Quilters Come for a Retreat

Vicki’s Quilters from Albury held their annual retreat at Russellee BnB again this weekend.  Their chosen workshop for this retreat was a ‘Landscape Quilt’.  The retreat started with a show and tell of two of the quilts from their last retreat here.  The class was ‘Butterfly Trails’.  This is the workshop that I will be doing on our 4^th Australian Quilting and Embroidery Cruise next February.

 

 

The ladies started by designing their landscape on paper and then auditioning fabrics.  Swapping of fabrics ensured that the right fabric for the landscapes were available. The weekend saw landscapes evolving before our eyes.  Most got to the quilting stage.  Here are a few of the end results read for the next stage.

 

 

Russellee BnB Craft Retreats Newsletter

Russellee has had a very busy six months and I would like to thank all those who attended one of our retreats either scrapbooking or patchwork. 

The year started off with our first UFO retreat for the year in February.  This was followed by the 3^rd Australian Quilting Cruise. Ladies came from all parts of the country as well as five from New Zealand.

We arrived home from the Cruise on the 9^th March and this was followed by our first Scrapbooking Retreat for the year. Helen Godden fitted her ‘Crack Pots’  workshop into her busy schedule in March. Eleven ladies from around the area as well as one travelling from Victoria.  We thank Helen and her mum for doing this for us.

Sandy’s Quilters from Canberra also came in March. This was their fifth year of coming.  To finish off March I had my sister’s, Pam, 70^th  birthday at Russellee.

Laraine and I took some time out and attended the Norfolk Island Quilting Retreat with Michelle Yea.  Both Tony and Bill came with us as we had a very enjoyable 10 days of quilting and sightseeing.  Norfolk is a beautiful place.

I made and effort and finished a project of raw edge appliqué and entered it into the Tumut Art Show in the fibre art section and to my surprise it won and I also sold it.  I find it very difficult to get the time to finish projects for competition and it was hard going getting the piece finished but it was worth the effort.

A group of lovely ladies from Sydney came for a five day retreat at the end of April.  Some of these ladies have been on our cruises and one was also at Norfolk.  It was wonderful being able to catch up with them again.

Robyn Taylor from Wagga came over and gave these ladies a workshop on her Fabric Mosaic technique.  They also invited Roz to join in and the resulting pictures were stunning.

In May a group of ladies came for their third Mothers and Daughters Card Making weekend.  This group come from different areas of the state and use the weekend to catch up with each other and make some beautiful cards.

I also had a thread painting weekend in May.  It has been three years since I presented one.  Had ladies travel from Sydney, Mittagong, Wagga and The Rock as well as local.  A small group but the results were great.

The end of May saw Tony, James, Liam and I head off to Uluru for a road trip. (Tony’s idea.) It was a long, long way but the scenery was spectacular.  I have lots of inspirational photos for thread painting and hope have one done in time for the Desert Sands Exhibition in August.

Back home and another UFO Retreat.  This Retreat was a bit different to our other  UFO quilting retreats as we had two knitters and a lovely teenager working on an appliqué project for her HSC.  It was great to see the younger generation interested in sewing.

I am working on two quilts for the Canberra Quilt Show in August.  Nothing like a bit of pressure to get things moving.  I promised myself that this year I would enter some of my work into shows.  Have managed one and two more to go. (I hope).

As to the rest of the year.  July is fairly quite as far as Retreats go but August has two retreats plus I am doing two craft shows to promote the cruise and the retreats.

October is our Bail Quilting Retreat.  We still have one spot left on this.  Two ladies are coming from New Zealand to join us at Bail.

 

I am planning to have another UFO Retreat 7 – 9 November and a Thread Painting workshop 6-7 December.  In  between I have a scrapbooking retreat plus three private retreats.

The second half is going to be busy but life is best when busy.

 

Take Care

Dorothy